Abstract
Naphthenic acids and sulfur containing compounds in crude oils are corrosive at high temperature and have been strong concerns for potential corrosion damage in the atmospheric distillation units, vacuum distillation units, transfer lines, and side cut piping in the refining industry. Naphthenic acid and sulfur compound induced corrosion is influenced by a number of critical factors including concentration and molecular characteristics of naphthenic acids and sulfur compounds, process temperature, oil fluid velocity and wall shear stress. This paper will comparatively and comprehensively review the influence of crude oil chemistry on naphthenic acid corrosion, the protectiveness of the iron sulfide scale with sulfur compounds, and the ability to resist naphthenic acid corrosion with sulfur speciation including molecular weight, molecular structure, molecular size, molecular boiling point as well as operation parameters of temperature, shear stress, and alloys. The paper will also provide limited results and important trends of naphthenic acid and sulfur containing crude oil corrosion from recent research from a Joint Industry Program conducted by the authors, and will contrast experimental results with dominant themes from comparative literature.
